Cathy's Art Diary

Enlightening exhibition at Buckingham Palace as part of the summer opening of the palace of works by artists commissioned by King Charles to accompany him on official tours to record them. The pictures belong to the King's private art collection and feature of a variety of artists he has commissioned since 1985. Their brief is to draw or paint whatever inspires them on the trip. Forty-five artists have now been involved over seventy trips to ninety countries. The work was quite conventional but reflected the King's taste. They seem to amount to posh holiday postcards. My favourite was this work by Phillip Butah of an elephant sanctuary in Nairobi. Closed 28 September 2025 Reviews Times Telegraph

Lovely exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery of the greatest hits of the Royal Collection paintings. The works are at the Queen’s Gallery while Buckingham Palace is being refurbished, and although all the works were well known, it was a god opportunity to look at them up close to see the detail. They also become a good introductory walk through of art history. Name an artist, and they are probably here. I liked the fact the labels not only told you about the picture but also how they came into the Royal Collection. Highlights included Vermeer’s “The Music Lesson” which is always a joy to see, four wonderful portrait shaped Canaletto’s and the Artemesia Gentileschi self-Portrait. There was a wonderful room of works by Rubens, Van Dyck and Rembrandt and their contemporaries which featured one of my favourite pictures, Agatha Bas by Rembrandt shown here. I love the detail of her clothes and fan and the way one hand breaks the frame. Closes 13 February 2022 Reviews Times Guardia...

Excellent exhibition at Buckingham Palace showing clothes from throughout the Queen’s life. The Palace need to rethink their exhibition space and how they manage flow through it. Because all visitors go to the show as well as seeing the house they are dealing with very big numbers with mixed levels of interest in the items on show. There is a lovely big room to start but it gets full quickly and most of the people in it are unable to get a good view of the display or read the labels. If you really want to see the exhibits you have to queue up at each one which gets very tedious. Anyway moan over! I loved the fact the show started with an outfit from nearly every decade of the Queen’s life including her christening gown and the beautiful dresses she and her sister wore to their father’s Coronation. As with most of the displays each outfit was shown with a photo of her in it and in all cases they looked much better on her and animated. There was a nice section on her un...

Nice exhibition at Buckingham Palace as part of this year’s summer opening looking at entertaining at the Palace. The show was spread over the whole palace but with a concentrated section about half way round. I must admit I didn’t realise this at first so missed the significance of the section on investitures! I did twig after that though! There was a good section on a royal visit and its accompanying banquet with small mocked up rooms looking at the office and admin, the kitchens, the wine cellar etc. Most interesting was the room on the dressmaker and milliner. I hadn’t realised the Queen had this in-house!   I loved the hat moulds! One room was set up for a banquet with the table in different states of preparation. Another had outfits the Queen had worn for garden parties this year but sadly not the outfit for the one I went to!

Delightful but busy exhibition at Buckingham Palace looking at the life of royal children who had grown up there. The exhibition was part of the general entrance and was therefore very busy! Some sections of it were scattered about the royal apartments but the bulk was in an exhibition space which was heaving with people! There were some delightful items such as nursery chair made for William, Harry, Beatrix and Eugene, a baby blanket given to Prince George by President Obama and some of the dolls made by Queen Victoria. There was a charming section of clothes including Prince William’s blue shorts and white shirt and a fairy dress worn by Princess Anne. Sweetest of all though was Prince Harry’s dressing gown made like a guard’s uniform! I loved the section on outdoor toys and I wanted the miniature caravan! Review Telegraph    

Exhibition at the Queen’s Gallery at Buckingham Palace of Italian art in the Royal Collection bringing together 90 paintings and 85 drawings from royal palaces. Galleries of paintings focused on Florence, Rome, Venice and Northern Italy in the C16th and the Baroque. Another gallery side gallery had three rooms of drawings looking at the different techniques. Incorporated through the exhibition was furniture, sculpture and books from the collection. There was some focus on how the items entered the Royal Collection looking in particular at the collecting of Charles I including how it was dispersed on his death and how many items were required on the Restoration. It was a lovely opportunity to see some great works of art. My particular favourites were two drawings by Michelangelo as a gift for Tommaso de’ Cavalieri one of “A children’s bacchanal” and one of “The Fall of Phaeton”. The best painting was the self portrait by Artemisia Gentileschi which was shown next to works by her father ...